The Secretary of State, Capelle, was approached by competent naval technical experts, who told him that, by stopping the building of all other vessels, a fivefold number of U-boats could be built.

Capelle rejected the proposal on the pretext "that nobody would know what to do with so many U-boats when the war was at an end." Germany had, as mentioned, 100 submarines; had she possessed 500, she might have achieved her aims.
I only heard this in the winter of 1918, but it was from a source from which I invariably gleaned correct information.
Seldom has any military action called forth such indignation as the sinking, without warning, of enemy ships.

And yet the observer who judges from an objective point of view must admit that the waging war on women and children was not begun by us, but by our enemies when they enforced the blockade.

Millions have perished in the domains of the Central Powers through the blockade, and chiefly the poorest and weakest people--the greater part women and children--were the victims.
If, to meet the argument, it be asserted that the Central Powers were as a besieged fortress, and that in 1870 the Germans starved Paris in similar fashion, there is certainly some truth in the argument.

But it is just as true--as stated in the Note of March 5--that in a war on land no regard is ever paid to civilians who venture into the war zone, and that no reason is apparent why a war at sea should be subject to different moral conditions.